The sudden death of a loved one can be devastating for anyone. But in 2015, when Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg lost her husband — entrepreneur and the widely loved “soul” of Silicon Valley, Dave Goldberg — she also had to grapple with the public nature of her grief.

Two years later, Sandberg has co-written a book about that process, “Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy,” with her friend, psychologist Adam Grant. On the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher, she talked about the mistakes we often make when people we know are in mourning — mistakes that Sandberg herself was guilty of in the past.

“Before I lost Dave, if someone was going through something hard, I would say, ‘How much time off do you want? Do you want those projects taken off you?’” Sandberg recalled. “But that's it. I wouldn't say anything else because I thought I was putting pressure on them.”

When co-workers said things like that to Sandberg, she said it “trashed my self-confidence” because it reinforced a feeling of impotence. She credited CEO Mark Zuckerberg with finding the right things to say instead.

“What Mark did was, he said, ‘Do you want time off?’” Sandberg said. “But then he said, ‘I thought you made a good point in that meeting,’ or when I fell asleep in a meeting, ‘Oh, everyone does that.’ Everyone doesn't do that. I made a mistake, he’s like, ‘Oh, you would have made that mistake before.’ That was really reassuring. He kept telling me I was adding value.”

In the immediate aftermath of Goldberg’s death, Sandberg said she also got help from Facebook users, whom she didn’t know. As an act of therapeutic writing, she typed up a journal entry as a “Fakebook” post, which she never intended to share.

“I woke up the next morning,” she said. “There are so many bad moments in this. That was one of the bad ones, really terrible. I felt so awful. I thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to post this because things aren’t going to get worse. They might get better.’”

“It actually helped so much,” she added. “It did not take away the grief, but it took away a bunch of the isolation. A friend from work said she had been driving by my house almost every day and had never come in. She was scared to. She started coming in, and I needed her. Strangers posted, ‘I’ve lost this person. I’ve lost a twin. I lost a baby. I lost a husband.’ Rather than feel so isolated, I felt connected to all of these people who were experiencing loss, and breaking the isolation really helped.”

The journal entries that poured out of Sandberg as she continued to grieve formed the foundation of her half of “Option B.” She acknowledged that, even though social media is not perfect, it has created a forum for emotional honesty around a large number of topics, which may feel taboo in face-to-face relationships.

“We share in some ways, but we don’t share in others,” Sandberg said. “It's not just death that ushers in this huge elephant that’s following behind us, trampling over our relationships. You want to silence a room? Tell someone you have cancer. Your father just went to prison. Your mother just lost her job. You just lost your job. You were raped.”

“These things happen to people every day,” she added. “It's not that everyone wants to share everything at all times, but we really leave people alone when we need them the most.”

Another connection has emerged between Donald Trump and Felix Sater, the Russian emigre and ex-con who's become a key figure in widening investigations into ties between Trump associates and Russian figures.

Reviews

Reviews

The statistical effects of the October 28 Letter | Federal Bureau of Investigation - NYT

"Many good questions could and should al-zo be asked when Mr. Comey testifies in the closed session of the House Intelligence Committee next week... Comey's overall "motivations" might be complex and and at the same time simple: the security of the country. The details of these complexities are not easy to read..." - by Michael Novakhov - 4.25.17

Gangs, Intelligence Services, and Politics

M.N.: It would be unforgivably naive to suppose that the U.S. criminal Underworld is not controlled these days by the Russian Mafia, and, in turn, by the Russian Intelligence Services. It would also be unforgivably naive to suppose that there are no messages contained in the various criminal acts, and that there are no connections between the Underworld's recent operations and the present situation in the U.S., including the present investigations. As a matter of facts and the investigative leads, they might hold and provide the most easily accessible clues. Attention, the FBI and the significant others: do access these clues.

Smoke and Fire: The Trumputkins, the Trumpumpkins, "The Tillerson Ultimatum", and bad, bad Assad

By Michael Novakhov: So, the Trump - Putin mysterious marriage is on the rocks... The unresolved issues, whatever, whoever, and however triggers the attention to them and their discussions, have to be resolved: soundly, timely, fundamentally, and the long-term; otherwise they come back and accumulate, and together with the other unresolved issues, snowball and cause the avalanches. Nobody needs this mess, enough snow jobs everywhere... That's what Mishustin thinks...

"If you really want to fight ISIS, look into its origins and essence first." - Fight Against "ISIS"

In the opinion of the great many observers, those "sham" groups are nothing more than the creations and proxies of the Russian Military Intelligence (GRU), formed on the basis of the coalitions of the disaffected ex- Baathist Saddam's military (and first of all, military intelligence officers, historically tied with the GRU), with the "rebels-for-hire", and the Assad's Syrian Intelligence Services, which are also the proxies of the GRU.

"Trumpism" as the "social-political experiment" and the "Gang of Four"

The engineered election of Donald Trump as the U.S. President is the joint operation of the German, Russian, and Israeli Intelligence Services with the major executive and operational role played by the Russian-Jewish Mafia at the head of the International Organized Crime - by Michael Novakhov

Tillerson's Complaint:

"Lavrov won't dance with me..."

Lavrov's Response:

"My mama done tol' me... A man's a two-face..."

Vovchick "The Tarantula", why were you so "loud"?!

For Russia (or any other state), this extraordinary, unusual, demonstrative, primitive, blatant "loudness" was like digging her own grave with regard to the US - Russian relations, especially at the time when their improvement and the relief of sanctions is so desired by them, and no doubts, they would understand this very well. This peculiarity in this affair points to the possible deliberate set-up from the third party... The US - Russia - Germany triangle and the role of the revived German intelligence in it after the WW2 have to be examined under the most powerful microscope, in all their hidden details, and in the historical perspective.

Mike Nova's Shared NewsLinks Review

Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks

Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks

Howl!

The America of my dreams: Shattered. Raped.

The King Trump - by Michael Novakhov

The public prayers for His Majesty's health, wealth, and well-being, and also for the development of his additional intellectual capacities should be held no less than three times a day in all public squares, government offices, courthouses, and the places of worship, and also in all the private and public toilets, with the benefit of generating the taxable and multiple extra-flushes. Hopefully, it will flush out in due time.

The Information Age

All the relevant information at your fingertips: Information is not a commodity for sale but one of the most vital and important inalienable rights. To paraphrase Descartes: "I have access to information therefore I am". ("Information Age" - post of 11.30-21.13 | Image from: Information - Google Images)